Share this:

Like this:

For those of you wondering why I havent beaten up Vista yet… I have. I ran it from mid-beta to early-release and had a very well written and thought out evaluation of its security and usability features. It was quite negative. I wrote the entire article in notepad on my Vista machine.

One day I went to open the file to add finishing touches and proof it and the file disappeared. I know how silly and impossible this sounds. But its true. I have never seen anything like it under any operating system.

That pretty much cinched it for me. I downgraded back to XP and impatiently awaited the arrival of my new mac.

That being said, I laughed aloud as I read the CNET article. It contained many lines that I couldnt help but agree with such as…

Any operating system that provokes a campaign for its predecessor’s reintroduction deserves to be classed as terrible technology. Any operating system that quietly has a downgrade-to- previous-edition option introduced for PC makers deserves to be classed as terrible technology. Any operating system that takes six years of development but is instantly hated by hordes of PC professionals and enthusiasts deserves to be classed as terrible technology.

It’s suffering from painfully slow adoption by users and corporations alike for good reason. I often hear the argument “All operating new operating systems have slow corporate adoption rates” however compared to 2000 and XP as well as planned adoption surveys… its dismal.

Conversely adoption rates of Linux and OS X on the desktop are way up. Microsoft may finally be loosing its foothold of absolute dominance and as any industry can prove this… real competition makes for better products all around.

Share this:

Like this:

We receive reports from our WSUS server telling what updates are rolling out to what servers. So when I started receiving TripWire reports indicating files being altered on a bunch of windows boxes I got concerned.

I started opening the files with hex editors looking for strange junk and ran sigverif to see if files are properly signed. After doing that I detected nothing fishy.

Share this:

Like this:

Microsoft announced today that it will issue an urgent, out of cycle patch for the ‘recent’ animated cursor vulnerability (CVE-2007-0038)… a whole week ahead of its precious and ill-conceived patch tuesday.

Some would claim that this an example of Microsoft doing the right thing, getting urgent issues resolved quickly and cutting through their own patching release cycle. Upon closer examination you will find this to be false.

This vulnerability affects all version of MS Internet Explorer and Windows. All an attacker would have to do is embed a malicious animated cursor into a web page and anyone who visits the page is ‘auto-attacked’. Its important to keep in mind that sites like myspace allow anyone to modify their own pages and embed anything they like. Its also important to remember that hackers take over legitimate, commercial sites and embed their nastys. They get more bang for their buck that way.

To support my belief that MS is still only talking big and not following through, I present to you the time-line.

*This is a conservative estimate. The article states “In December 2006″. For fairness sake this figure assumes 12/31/06 but the figure could in fact be as large as 123 days, if it was discovered 12/01/06

Basics

AD Consists of two types of objects. Containers and non-containers (or leaf nodes)

All objects have a ‘Globally Unique Identifier’ (GUID)

Hierarchical paths in AD are known as ‘ADsPaths’

ADsPaths are normally referred to using LDAP standards

Starts with a 'programmatic identifier' (progID) followed by :// separate each part with a comma prefix each part with dc= (dc stands for domain name component) prl.pbb.local becomes LDAP://dc=pbb,dc=pbb,dc=local

A distinguished name (DN) is used to reference an object in a DIT

A relative distinguished name (RDN) is used to reference an object within its parent container

To reference Alice's object in prl_biz ou within the prl ou it would look like this. LDAP://cn=albin,ou=prl_biz,ou=prl,dc=pbb,dc=pbb,dc=local

domains and domain trees

A domain controller (DC) can be authoritative for one and only one domain.

Containers (the object type) may contain other container objects as well as leaf nodes.

An OU is the other type of container and can have group policies applied to it, and a container (the object) can not.

Each forest has a child container called ‘Configuration’ which has a child container called ‘Schema’

Global Catalog (GC)

Used to perform forest wide searches

Accessed via LDAP on port 3268

Uses progID of GC://

The GC is read-only and can not be directly updated

Objects available in the GC are members of the PAS (Partial Attributes Set)

To add/remove attributes use the AD Schema snap-in for mmc

Flexible Single Master of Operations (FSMO – pronounced fizmo)

Certain actions in the forest/domain will only be done by the FSMO regardless of how many other DC’s you have.

Schema Master (forest-wide) Only machine allowed to make schema changes. Changes made on other DCs will be refered to the FSMO Domain Naming Master (forest-wide) PDC Emulator (domain-wide) PW synching and PDC legacy compatibility. Browser Master RID Master (domain-wide) Relative ID Master, All security principals have a Security Identifier (SID). Infrastructure Master (domain-wide) Maintains cross-domain object references (phantom references). User is in domainA but a member of a group in domain B

NTDSUTIL: howto: [1] download: support pack [2] Allows transfer of FSMO roles to other DCs. If the FSMO server dies you can ungracefully force the role to another dc -- known as 'seizing' the role. [3]

Groups

3 scopes…

Domain Local: membership available only within domain. May contain other groups (admin group)

Each DC maintains its own separate ‘Update Sequence Number’ (USN). It is a 64bit value assigned to each update transication. Each update increments the USN value. Like the serial number in DNS.

Each DC maintains its highest combined USN for all NCs in the highestCommittedUSN value of the RootDSE. The values are always different from DC to DC for a given replication.

If time is off by 5minutes or more on a DC it will not be able to replicate.

Originating Update (write) The point of origin for an update (on which DC was this update made)

Replicated Update (write) A change that did not originate on the DC in question.

Each DC has a GUID called the DSA GUID. It is used to uniquely identify a DC and is the objectGUID of the NTDS settings object for the DC in the configuration container.

The High-WaterMark Vector (HWMV) is a table maintained independently by each DC. Keeps info on where a DC last left off when replicating the NC with a specific partner.

The up-to-dateness vector (UTDV) is a table maintained independently by each DC. It is used for replication dampening to reduce traffic and endless replication.

An example of how an object is modified during replication…

1. A user is created on serverA. 2. The object (user) is replicated to serverB. 3. The object is subsequently modified on serverB. 4. The new changes are replicated back to serverA.

1. Creation of the object on ServerA 1. values are set to defaults defined for user creation 2. users USN is set to 1000 (the USN of this transaction) 3. version number is set to 1. 4. timestamp is set to the time of creation 5. originating-server GUID is set to the GUID of the server 6. originating-server USN is set to 1000 (USN of this transaction)

2. Replication of the object to serverB serverB adds a copy of the object as a replicated write. USN 2500 is assigned to the object. This value is written to the USNCreated and USNChanged attributes of the object.

3. Password changed for user on serverB. 1. Password value is set 2. passwords USN is set to 3777 (USN for this transaction) 3. users version number is set to 2. 4. timestamp is updated 5. originating-server GUID is set to the GUID of serverB 6. originating-server USN is set to 3777 (USN of this transaction)

4. Password change replication to serverA serverA generates a transaction USN of 1333. USNChanged is set to 1333. Originating-server GUID is set to that of serverB

… Incomplete (missing conflict resolution section)

AD and DNS

DC Locator

Resource Records used to AD

Delegation Options

… incomplete (duh)

Profiles

A profile is created on each computer a user logs into. It is %systemDrive%\Documents and Settings\%userName%

It creates various data files including NTUSER.DAT. This file contains the user portion of the registry. This includes the screen saver, wallpaper, myDocuments location, etc.

Settings specific to the computer in question are also applied to the user via the AllUsers\NTUSER.DAT on the given machine.

You use the ADUC (Active Directory Users and Computers) tool to set the roaming profile info for a given user.

To have the profile deleted from the local machine upon logout set the following key on the computer (computer and teaching labs!)…

These are generated from the Administrative Template (ADM) files in the system volume.

By default workstations and member servers refresh GPOs every 90 minutes and DCs every 5.

On non DCs 1 to 30 minutes (randomly generated) will be added to the refresh time to avoid everyone checking in at once.

GPOs allow admin to remote deploy applications to users OR computers. MSI is the only way this works.

MSIs can be modified for the environment. This process is known as creating a ‘transform’.

You can set an MSI to auto-install when someone attempts to open a file with an extension that an MSI app can read.

If an install is assigned to the user portion of the GPO it will install when the user logs into a machine and uninstall upon log off. If its installed to the computer it is available to any user who logs into it.

By contrast, he points to Microsoft as a prime example of how to respond to threats, providing well-documented communications and prescriptive “how-to” guidance with alerts that are delivered through email, RSS and deployment tools.

This whole paragraph is absolutely laughable. Lets flash back for a second to Microsoft security bulletin 912840 and my rant regarding it. And now lets re-read that happy little Microsoft fud. Something doesn’t add up, does it?

If that isn’t enough to convince you, lets look at yet another reason why no software vendor should ever adopt Microsoft’s security practices. Two words; Patch Tuesday. Holy god is that a bad model. No matter how bad a vulnerability is, they will sit on the patch (leaving everyone exposed) till the next patch Tuesday. Just because its more convenient for admins.

I, as an admin, would much rather patch frequently, than sit on hands while blatantly exposed to a threat.

Once they work these things out, then (maybe) they can blast other software vendors. Until that time though, they should sit back, shut up and stop making themselves look foolish.

Share this:

Like this:

One of the more common questions my support team at work receives is in regards to Windows based computers starting to run slowly. This will eventually happen to all windows machines and is simply in the nature of windows.

The long-term problem is that the windows registry (the database that underlies windows and controls everything from passwords to last window locations) simply gets clogged from installing and uninstalling software.

Most Windows professionals recommend that if you want a machine to remain ‘speedy’ that you should reformat it every 6-12 months (new Windows install). Obviously not all of us have the time to do this so I will outline a few things that can be done short of formatting that will still significantly increase system performance.

1. Install Ad-Aware SE

Ad-Aware SE is one of the better anti-spyware programs ont he market and is completely free. Spyware can be installed via legitimate software that you intended on installing or by simply browsing to a web site that will execute malicious code. Internet Explorer is notoriously susceptible to spy ware installing itself via routine web browsing and because of this (and a number of other reasons) US-CERT (the governmental agency in charge of issuing software security announcements) recommends that no one run Internet Explorer at all. FireFox is an excellent alternative and should import all of your IE favorites during the install.

2. Make sure your virus software is up to date and run and complete system scans.

Virii is a common performance thief on windows based computers. They hog resources either by design or wile executing a payload and harvesting address books, files on your hard drive or propagating itself.

3. Look at your sysTray.

The sysTray is the area next to the clock in the lower right hand corner of your screen. Each icon you see there is running in memory. I recommend right clicking on each icon that you do not need and seeing if there is way to permanently disable the item. Some items will have a ‘disable’ option, however it will only disable it for that session. Upon logging out and back in you will see the icon again. With items like this you will need to find a ‘preferences’ or ‘configuration’ option. If none seems to be available I would go into the application associated with it and check in its preferences.

4. Startup Items

Open windows explorer (windows hot key + e on your keyboard) and browse to ‘c:\documents and settings\YOURUSERNAME\startmenup\startp” and delete any icons that you do not running when you log in. You will also want to do this in the ‘c:\documents and settings\all users\startmenu\startup” directory after having logged in as administrator. If you realy want to get a handle on whats going on at startup you will want AutoRuns by sysinternals.

5. Run a scandisk.

By going to My Computer, and right clicking on your C drive you will be shown a dialog box with a number of tabs. Go to the ‘Tools’ tab and start a scan disk. This will check your drive for file system errors and correct them. In some cases windows will need exclusive rights to the hard drive and say that it will be run during the next reboot. Tell it ok and then reboot your machine.

6. Run a defrag.

After the machine returns from the scan disk in the same area run a defrag or ‘disk defragmentation’. This will physically align all of your files in the proper order on your hard drive. This will create less drive-seak time when running programs or loading files. This task is best performed monthly.

If you have performed all of these steps, rebooted your machine and are still unsatisfied with the performance, you may want to consider backing up your files, locating all of your programs install media and licenses and reformat your machine and reinstall windows.Click here to view a microsoft article on the same subject.